He's exaggerating. Or is just making silly assumptions.
I don't know about Germany, but when I was considering moving from the UK to California, the total tax difference I was looking at was 1-2 percentage points at my (high) salary level. Even compared to Norway which hardly has the reputation as a low tax country, my then salary and consumption would only lead to 3-4 percentage point more tax. This was when I included the amount of VAT I'd pay on average (even the 25% VAT on most goods and services in Norway contribute surprisingly little, as of course for starters this is on your net income, and secondly peoples largest expenses tends to be things like rent or mortgage payments etc., so the amount of your salary that actually goes on stuff taxed at the max VAT rates in Europe ends up fairly small).
Even compared with Belgium (which has one of the highest all-in tax rates in the world - well above Germany as far as I remember) California taxes would be well above half more most people.
The US in general isn't nearly as low-tax as some people would like to believe. I seem to remember that e.g. in OECD rankings the US comes pretty close to the top in the worldwide rankings and middle of the road when looking at developed countries.
Of course, if you cherry-pick tax brackets and assume a state with no state income tax, and suitably low sales taxes and lack of other local taxes in the US I'm sure you can find somewhere really cheap, though most of them will likely be places few people wants to live.
Either you are full of BS or have plain no idea what you are talking about. Did you ever look at your pay or earnings statements? I know what they are in both the USA, France, Germany, and the UK and I can assure you that income taxes for middle class income earners is significantly lower in the US on average.
> I know what they are in both the USA, France, Germany, and the UK and I can assure you that income taxes for middle class income earners is significantly lower in the US on average.
For France and Germany you are right, but that was not something I disputed. I specifically pointed out that I did not know the specifics of Germany, but disputed the claim that German taxes are twice those of California.
Yes, I've looked at my earnings statements. In detail. And no, my tax burdens have not been all that different.
I can't speak to your experience, as it obviously depends on what tax brackets you end up in and what deductions you get, and for the US it depends massively on where in the US you live. Specifically to the argument at hand, tax levels in California are amongst the highest in the US, which also makes them amongst the highest in the world, given that the US average places the US as a whole amongst the highest taxation countries in the world.
As for the averages, Germany and France near the very top world wide.
According to the OECD numbers for 2014, they're 3rd and 5th in highest tax burden respectively. But even then, Germany ends up at slightly below 50%, and the US as a whole slightly above 30% when combining income tax, employer and employee social security contributions.
Given that California tax rates are far above US average, with both a payroll tax and being one of only 3 states as far as I can tell that have state income taxes that goes beyond 10%, I can safely stand by my statement that the claim that it was an exaggeration to claim that German taxes are twice California taxes without even bothering to dig up the actual averages for California.
In terms of the UK, fully loaded taxes are actually lower than the US average according to the OECD (US was for 2014 ranked as having the 24th highest taxes in the world, UK 26th; and since I mentioned Norway: 21st)
I don't know about Germany, but when I was considering moving from the UK to California, the total tax difference I was looking at was 1-2 percentage points at my (high) salary level. Even compared to Norway which hardly has the reputation as a low tax country, my then salary and consumption would only lead to 3-4 percentage point more tax. This was when I included the amount of VAT I'd pay on average (even the 25% VAT on most goods and services in Norway contribute surprisingly little, as of course for starters this is on your net income, and secondly peoples largest expenses tends to be things like rent or mortgage payments etc., so the amount of your salary that actually goes on stuff taxed at the max VAT rates in Europe ends up fairly small).
Even compared with Belgium (which has one of the highest all-in tax rates in the world - well above Germany as far as I remember) California taxes would be well above half more most people.
The US in general isn't nearly as low-tax as some people would like to believe. I seem to remember that e.g. in OECD rankings the US comes pretty close to the top in the worldwide rankings and middle of the road when looking at developed countries.
Of course, if you cherry-pick tax brackets and assume a state with no state income tax, and suitably low sales taxes and lack of other local taxes in the US I'm sure you can find somewhere really cheap, though most of them will likely be places few people wants to live.